Now, Ruth and Agnes were being ushered into the room by the broadly smiling Posy just as Mr. Buckham recited this old jingle. Agnes flushed to the roots of her hair, and then paled with alarm. She expected, then and there, to be accused with the heinous offence of having picked strawberries without permission in Mr. Bob Buckham's field!

"Oh! what a pretty girl!" cried the invalid. "Come here, my dear, and let me pinch those cheeks. You need not blush so; I'm sure you've been told you were pretty before—and I hope it hasn't spoiled you," and Mrs. Buckham laughed heartily.

"I should know you were little Theresa's sister," continued the lady, as Agnes tremblingly approached. "She will be just such another when she gets to be as old as you, I am sure.

"And of course, this is Ruth," and she welcomed the oldest Corner House girl, too. "Four such splendid girls must make their mother's heart glad."

"I hope we did make her glad when she was with us," Ruth said quietly. "But we have no mother now; and no father."

"Oh, my dear!" cried the invalid, in quite a shocked tone. "I had no idea——"

"We miss our mother and our father. Even Dot can remember them both," said Ruth, still calmly. "But it happened so long ago that we do not cry about it any more—do we, girls?"

As the oldest sister spoke, the other three seemed to be involuntarily drawn to her. Dot took one hand and snuggled it against her soft, dark cheek. Tess put both arms about Ruth's neck and warmly kissed her. Agnes already had her arm around her elder sister's waist.

"I see," said Mrs. Buckham, with sudden appreciation. "The others do not miss the lost and gone mother, for a very good reason. I am sure you have done your duty, Ruth Kenway."

"I have tried to," Ruth said simply. "And they have all been good children, and helped."

"I ain't a doubt of it—I ain't a doubt of it," repeated Mrs. Buckham, briskly.

Agnes was watching the changing expression of the old lady's face, wondering if—as Neale had said—Mr. Buckham could not write, the invalid had sent in the list of girls' names to the principal of the Milton High. The old farmer himself might be unlettered; but Mrs. Buckham, Agnes was sure, must have had some book education.

Right at the invalid's hand, indeed, were two shelves fastened under the window sill, filled with books—mostly of a religious character. And their bindings showed frequent handling.

Posy brought in the steaming tea urn. "Come on now, folks," said Mrs. Buckham. "I'm just a honin' for a cup of comfort. That's what I call it. Tea is my favorite tipple—and I expect I'm just as eager for it as a poor drunkard is after liquor. Dear me! I never could blame them that has the habit for drink. I love my cup of comfort too well."

Posy was putting Tess and Dot into their chairs. The farmer awoke from his brown study, got up, stretched himself, and, with a smile, wheeled his wife's chair to the table.

"There ye be, Marm," he said. "All right?"

"All right, Bob," she assured him.

"Yes," the farmer said, turning to the children with a broader smile, "you ask your friend, Mrs. Eland, if she's related to Lemuel Aden. Seems to me she is his brother Abe's darter. Lem was a sharper; but Abe was a right out an' out——"

"Now, Bob!" interposed his wife. "That's all gone and done for."

"Well, so 'tis, Marm. But I can't never forget it. I was a boy and my marm was a widder woman. The five hundred dollars was all we had—every cent we had in the world," he added, looking about at the interested faces of his visitors.

"Abe Aden was a lawyer, or suthin' like that. He was a dabster at most things, includin' horse-tradin'. My father had put all the money he had in the world in Abe's hands, in some trade or other. We tried to git it back when father was kill't so sudden in the sawmill.

"Just erbout then Abe got inter trouble in a horse-trade. He was a good deal of a Gyp—so 'twas said. He left everything in Lem's hands and skedaddled out West. But he didn't leave no five hundred dollars in Lem's hands for us—no, sir!" and the old man shook his head ruminatively.

"No, sir. He likely got away with that five hundred to pay his fare, and so escaped jail."

"You don't know that, Bob," said his wife, gravely.

"No. I don't know it. But I know that my marm and I suffered all that winter because of losin' the five hundred. I was only a boy. I hadn't got my growth. She overworked because of that rascal's dishonesty, and it broke her down and killed her. I loved my marm," he added simply.

"'Course you did—'course you did, Bob," said his wife, briskly. Then she smiled about at the tableful of young folk, and confessed: "He begun callin' me 'marm,' like he did his mother, right away when we was married. She'd been dead since he was a little boy, and I considered it the sweetest compliment Bob could pay me. I've been 'marm' to him ever since."

"You sure have," declared Mr. Buckham, stoutly. "But that ain't bringin' my poor old marm back—nor the five hundred dollars. We never did hear direct from Abe Aden; but by and by a leetle gal wandered back here to the neighborhood. Said she was Abe's darter. He and her mother was lost in a big fire in some Western city; and she'd lost her sister, too."

"Poor child!" sighed the old lady. "You couldn't hold a grudge against the child, Bob."

"Who says I done so?" demanded the farmer. "No, sir! I never even seed the child more'n once or twice. But I know her name was Marion. And I heard her tell her story. The Chicago fire was a nine days' wonder, and this fire the gal's parents were lost in, was much similar, I should say. She'd seen her father and mother and the house they lived in, all swept away together—in a moment, almost. She and her sister escaped, but were separated in the refugees' camp and she couldn't never find the other child again. This Marion was old enough to remember about her Uncle Lem, and where he used to live; so the Relief Committee sent her here—glad ter git rid of her on sech easy terms, I s'pose. But Lem Aden had drapped out o' sight before then, and none of us folks knowed where he'd gone to."

"And that little girl was Mrs. Eland?" Ruth ventured to ask, for the farmer's remembrances of old times did not interest the little girls. Posy was heaping their plates with good things to eat. The picnic dinner in the woods had been forgotten.

"Yes. I reckon so," Mr. Buckham said, in answer to Ruth's inquiry. "She was kep' to help by some good people around here—just as we took Posy, marm and me. The child drifted away later. She got some schoolin'. I guess she went to a hospital and l'arned to be a nurse. Then she married a man named Eland, but he was sickly. I dunno as she ever did see her Uncle Lem."

CHAPTER XI

THE STRAWBERRY MARK

At the time when she had led the raid of the basket ball team and their friends upon Mr. Buckham's strawberry patch, she had been inspired by mere thoughtlessness and high spirits. The idea that she was trespassing—actually stealing—never entered her helter-skelter thoughts until afterward.

The field was so large, there were so many berries, and she and her mates took so few, that it really did not seem like stealing to thoughtless Agnes—no, indeed! It was just a prank.

And now to hear Bob Buckham express his horror of a thief!

"And that's what I am!" thought the bitterly repentant Agnes. "No, not a thief now. But I was at the time I took those berries. I am awfully sorry that I did such a thing. I—I wish I could tell him so."

That thought took fast hold upon the girl's mind. Her appreciation of the enormity of her offence had not been so great before—not even when Mr. Marks, the principal of the Milton High School, was talking so seriously to the girls about their frolic.

Then she had felt mainly the keen disappointment the punishment for her wrong-doing had brought. Not to be allowed to take part in the play which she felt sure would be enacted by the pupils of the Milton schools for the benefit of the Women's and Children's Hospital was a bitter disappointment, and that thought filled her mind.

Now she felt a different pang—far different. Shame for her act, and sorrow for the wrong she had done, bore Agnes' spirit down. Little wonder that she was all but dumb, and that her flowerlike face was overcast.

Tea was over and Mr. Buckham drew his wife's wheel-chair back to its usual place by the window. The light was fading even there, and Ruth said that they must start for home.

"Don't run away, sis," said the old farmer. "Marm and me don't have many visitors like you; an' we're glad to have ye."

"I fear that Mrs. MacCall will be afraid for us if we remain away much after dark," Ruth said cheerfully. She had already explained about Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah, and even about Uncle Rufus.

"But we all have had such a nice time," Ruth added. "I know we shall only be too glad to come again."

"That's a good word," declared the invalid. "You can't come too often."

"Thank you," said Ruth. "If Neale will get the ponies ready——"

"And while he's doin' so, I'll take a look at that dog's ear again," said Mr. Buckham, cheerfully. "Wouldn't want nothin' bad to happen to such a brave dog as Tom Jonah."

"He's layin' out behind my kitchen stove, and he behaves like a Christian," Posy declared.

"He's a gentleman, Tom Jonah is," said Tess, proudly. "It says so on his collar," and she proceeded to tell the good-natured maid-of-all-work Tom Jonah's history—how he had first come to the old Corner House, and all that he had done, and how his old master had once unsuccessfully tried to win him back.

"But he wouldn't leave us at all. Would he, Dot?" she concluded.

"Of course not," said the smallest girl. "Why should he? Aren't we just as nice to him as we can be? And he sleeps in the kitchen when it's cold, for Mrs. MacCall says he's too old to take his chances out of doors these sharp nights."

"That's very thoughtful of your Mrs. MacCall, I do allow," agreed the jolly invalid. "And do you suppose she will get your doll's cloak done in time for your call on Mrs. Eland?"

"My Alice-doll's cloak? I do hope so," said Dot, with a sigh of anxiety.

"Wouldn't you go to call on the lady without her, if the cloak shouldn't be done?" asked the farmer's wife, much amused.

"Oh, no! I couldn't do that," said Dot, gravely. "You see, I promised her."

"Who, Mrs. Eland?"

"No, ma'am. My Alice-doll. I told her she should go with us. You see," said the smallest Corner House girl, "she was with us when we made the acquaintance of Mrs. Eland—Tess and me. And my Alice-doll liked her just as well as Tess and me. So there you are!"

"I see," agreed Mrs. Buckham, quite seriously. "You couldn't disappoint the child."

"Oh, no indeed!" said Dot. "I wouldn't want to! You see—she's not very strong. She hasn't been since that time she was buried alive."

"Buried alive!" gasped the lady in horror and surprise.

"Yes, ma'am. With the dried apples."

"Buried with dried apples?" repeated Mrs. Buckham, her wonder growing. "What for?"

"It was a most awful cat's-triumph," said Dot, shaking her head, and very, very solemn, "and it makes my Alice-doll very nervous even to hear it talked about. If she were here I wouldn't mention it——"

"What? What did you say, child?" gasped Mrs. Buckham. "About a cat, I mean, my dear?"

"She means 'catastrophe,'" said Tess, coming to the rescue. "I really wish, Dot Kenway, that you wouldn't use words that you can't use!"

Mrs. Buckham's mellow laughter rang out and she hugged the smallest Corner House girl close to her side.

"Never mind, honey," she said. "If you want to make up a new word, you shall—so there!"

Meanwhile Agnes had followed the farmer out into the big kitchen. The old man sat in a low chair and pulled Tom Jonah tenderly between his huge knees, till the dog laid his muzzle in his lap, looking up at the man confidingly out of his big, brown eyes.

Mr. Buckham had put on a pair of silver-bowed spectacles and had the salve-box in his hand. He laid the badly torn ear carefully upon his knee and began to apply the salve with a gentle, if calloused, forefinger.

"This'll take the pizen out, old feller," said the farmer, crooningly.

Tom Jonah whined, but did not move. The application of the salve hurt the dog, but he did not pull away from the man's hand.

"He sure is a gentleman, jest as the little gal says," chuckled Bob Buckham.

He looked so kindly and humorously up at Agnes standing before him, that the troubled Corner House girl almost broke out into weeping. She gripped her fingers into her palms until the nails almost cut the tender flesh. Her heart swelled and the tears stung her eyelids when she winked them back. Agnes was a passionate, stormy-tempered child. This was a crisis in her young life. She had always been open and frank, but nobody will ever know what it cost her to blurt out her first words to Mr. Bob Buckham.

"Oh, Mr. Buckham! do you hate anybody who steals from you?"

"Heh?" he said, startled by her vehemence. "Do I hate 'em?"

"Yes."

"Goodness me, gal! I hope not. I'm a communin' Christian in our church, an' I hope I don't have no hatred in my heart against none o' my fellermen. But I hate some things that poor, weak, human critters does—yes, ma'am! 'Specially some of the ornery things Bob Buckham's done."

"Oh, Mr. Buckham! you never stole," blurted out Agnes.

"Ya-as I have. That's why I hate stealin' so, I reckon," said the farmer, slowly.

"Not, really?" cried Agnes.

"Yep. 'Twas a-many year ago. Marm and me had jest come on this farm. She was young an' spry then, God bless her! And it was well she was. Bob Buckham wouldn't never have owned the place and stacked up the few dollars he has in bank, if it hadn't been for her spryness.

"I'd jest got my first strawberry patch inter bearin'——"

"Oh! Strawberries!" gasped Agnes.

"Ya-as'm. Them's what I've made most of my money on. I only had a small patch. They was fust-class berries—most on 'em. They packed well, and we had ter put 'em into round, covered, quart boxes to ship in them days. I got a repertation with the local shipper for havin' A-number-one fruit.

"Wal! Marm an' me was mighty hard up. We was dependin' on the re-turns from the strawberry crop to pay mortgage, int'rest and taxes. And one end of the strawberry patch—the late end—had the meachinest lookin' berries ye ever seen."

Old Bob chuckled at the remembrance. His gaze sought the firelight flashing through the bars of the grate of the big cookstove.

"Wal!" he said. "That was a bad time. We needin' the money so, and the berry crop likely to be short of what we figgered. Them little old barries at that last end of the patch began to ripen up fast; but I see they wouldn't bring me no price at all—not if the shipper seed 'em.

"If I did," he said, with a grin, "it didn't spile my appetite. Not then. Not that day. I seen the carload shipped and never said a word. I went home. I eat my dinner just as hearty as ever and made preparations to work the next day's load the same way. Ye see, marm, she didn't know a thing about it.

"Wal!" continued the old man, "it come bed-time and we went to bed. I was allus a sound sleeper. Minute my head touched the husk piller, that minute I begun ter snore. I worked hard and I slept hard.

"But—funny thing—I didn't git to sleep. No reason—'parently. Wasn't worried. I was kinder tickled at what I'd done, and the slick way I'd done it. I never had cheated before to my knowledge; but I was happy at the thought of that extry ten dollars, and the other extry money that was ter foller."

"And—and didn't your conscience trouble you?" asked Agnes, wonderingly.

"Nope, not a mite. I was jest as quiet and contented as though they'd left a conscience out o' me when I was built," and the old man chuckled again, heartily.

"Marm says she believes more folks lay awake at night because of empty stomachs than from guilty consciences, an' so she always has a plate of crackers by her side o' the bed. Wal! I lay as calm as a spring mornin'; but after a while I gotter countin' sheep jumpin' through a gap in a stone-fence, and had jest about lulled myself ter sleep, when seems ter me there was a hand writin' on the wall opposite the foot of our bed. I didn't see the hand, mind you; but I seen the writin'. It was in good, big print-text, too, or I couldn't have read it at all—for you know I never had no schoolin', an' I kin jest barely write my name to this day.

"But that print showed up plain as plain! And it was jest one word—kinder 'luminated on the wall. It was strawberry. That's all, jest strawberry. You'd think it would ha' been somethin' like thief or cheat. Nope. It was jest strawberry. But I had to lay there all night with my eyes propped open, seeing that word on the wall.

"When daylight come it was still there. I seen it when I was dressin'. I carried it with me out to the stable. Everywhere I looked against a wall, I seed that word. If I hung my head and looked at the ground, it was there.

"I knowed if what I'd done about those meachin' little berries was ever knowed in the community, like enough I'd never be called by my right name any more. They'd call me 'Strawberry Bob.' I knowed it. That was goin' to be my punishment fur stealin'."

"Oh, Mr. Bob!" groaned Agnes, much moved by his earnestness.

"It's my belief," said old Bob Buckham, "that we don't hafter wait till the hereafter ter git our punishment for wrong-doin' here. I reckon most times we git it right here and now.

"Wal! I went erbout all that forenoon seein' strawberry marked up everywhere. I snum! it was right acrosst marm's forehead when I looked at her—and there warn't no other mark there in them days, you may be sure.

"I started in to pack berries jest the same as I did the day before. Then, of a sudden, I says to myself, 'Bob Buckham, you derned thief! Stop it! Ten dollars a day won't pay you for bein' called "Strawberry Bob"!'

"So I boxed them poor berries separate and I told the shipper what I'd done the day before. I told him to take ten dollars off my order. He grinned at me.

"'There was a railroad wreck yesterday, Bob, and our car went to pot. I'll git full damages from the railroad company.'

"'Not for them berries of mine, Silas,' I told him. He was Silas Wales. 'You de-duct what my berries cost you in full, and I'll turn back my hull order to ye!'

"He hummed and hawed; but he done it. He axed me was I havin' a hard time meetin' the int'rest on my mortgage, an' I told him the trewth. When the mortgage come due that year he come 'round and offered to let me have the money at a cheaper rate than I'd been payin', an' all the time I wanted. Ye see, that was a cheap way of gittin' a reperation for bein' honest, after all."

"And didn't you see the strawberry mark after that?" sighed Agnes.

"Nope. Nor they never called me 'Strawberry Bob,' though I've been raisin' more berries than most folks in this locality, ever since," said Bob Buckham.

"Oh, Mr. Buckham!" exclaimed Agnes. "I ought to be called 'Strawberry Agnes'!"

"Heh? What for?" asked the startled farmer.

"Because I stole berries! I stole them from you! Last May!" gulped the girl. "You know when those girls raided your field? I was one of them. I was the first one over the fence and picked the first berry. I—I'm awfully sorry; but I really didn't think how wrong it was at the time. And I wish I'd come to you and told you before, instead of waiting until the principal of our school—Mr. Marks—and everybody, knew about it."

"Sho, honey!" exclaimed Mr. Buckham, softly. "Was you one o' them gals? I'd no idee. Wal! say no more about it. What you took didn't break me," and he laughed. "And I won't tell nobody," he added, patting Agnes' shoulder.

As Agnes dried her eyes before joining her sisters and Neale O'Neil at the door, she thought that it was rather unnecessary for the farmer to make that promise. When he had caused the list of girls' names to be sent to the school principal, he had assured her punishment.

While Bob Buckham was saying to himself: "Now, that's a leetle gal after my own heart. She's a hull sight nicer than that other one. And she's truly repentant, too."

CHAPTER XII

TEA WITH MRS. ELAND

In spite of Neale's "puny" appetite, they had a great chestnut roast that evening. Eva Larry and Myra Stetson came in unexpectedly, and the Corner House girls had a very hilarious time. Neale was the only boy present; but he was rather used, by this time, to playing squire to "a whole raft of girls."

"And, oh, girls," cried the news-bearer, Eva, "what do you think? The School Board has voted to let us give The Carnation Countess. I heard it to-day. It's straight. The parts will be given out this next week. And, oh! poor us!"

"Miss Lederer said we would have quite important parts in the play," Ruth said complacently.

"And we can only look on," wailed Myra Stetson, quite as lugubriously as Eva.

"And I'm going to be a bee—I'm going to be a bee!" Dot danced around the table singing this refrain.

"I hope you won't be such a noisy one," Tess said admonishingly. "You're worse than a bumblebee, Dot Kenway."

Agnes really felt too bad to say anything for a minute or two. It was true she felt better in her heart since she had confessed to Mr. Bob Buckham; but the fact that she could not act in the musical play was as keen a disappointment as lively, ambitious Agnes Kenway had ever suffered.

For once Eva Larry's news was exact. It was announced to all grades of the Milton Public Schools on Monday morning that The Carnation Countess was to be produced at the Opera House, probably during the week preceding Christmas, and all classes were to have an opportunity of helping in the benefit performance.

A certain company of professional players, headed by a capable manager and musical director, were to take charge of the production, train the children when assembled, and arrange the stage setting. Half the proceeds of the entertainment were to go to the Milton Women's and Children's Hospital—an institution in which everybody seemed now to be interested.

The fact that a certain little girl named Tess Kenway, had really set the ball of interest in motion, was quite forgotten, save by a few. As for the next to the youngest Corner House girl, she never troubled her sweet-tempered little self about it. "Oh! I'm so glad!" she sighed, with satisfaction. "Now my Mrs. Eland can stay."

"What's that you say, Theresa?" Miss Pepperill's sharp voice demanded.

Tess repeated her expression of gratitude.

"Humph!" ejaculated the red-haired teacher. "So you are still interested in Mrs. Eland, are you? Have you seen her again?"

"I am going to take tea with her this afternoon," said Tess, eagerly. "So is my sister, Dot."

"You don't know if she has found her sister yet?" asked Miss Pepperill, but more to herself than as though she expected a reply. "No! of course not."

Tess hurried to meet Dot after school. She found her sister at the girls' gate of the primary department, hugging the Alice-doll (of course, in a brand new cloak) and listening with wide-eyed interest to the small, impish, black-haired boy who was talking earnestly to her.

"And then I shall run away and sail the rollin' billers," he declared. "I hope they won't find old Pepperpot after I tie her to her chair—not—not from Friday afternoon till Monday mornin', when they open school again. That's what I hope. And by that time I can sail clean around the Cape of Good Hope to the Cannibal Islands, I guess."

"Oh-ee!" gasped Dot. "And suppose the cannibals eat you, Sammy Pinkney? What would your mother say?"

"She'd be sorry, I guess," said Sammy, darkly. "And so would my pop. But shucks!" he added quickly. "Pirates never get eat by cannibals. They're too smart."

"That's all you know about it, Sammy Pinkney!" said Tess, sternly, breaking in upon the boasting of the scapegrace, who dearly loved an audience. "We met a man this summer that knew all about pirates—or said he did; didn't we, Dot?"

"Oh, yes. The clam-man," the smallest Corner House girl agreed. "And he had a wooden leg."

"Did he get it bein' a pirate?" demanded Sammy.

"He got it fighting pirates," Tess said firmly. "But the pirates got it worse. They got their legs mowed off."

"We-ell. Huh! I guess it would be fun to have a wooden leg, at that," the boy stoutly declared. "Anyway, a feller with a wooden leg wouldn't have growin' pains in it; and I have 'em awful when I go to bed nights, in my legs."

As the little girls went on to the hospital, Dot suddenly felt some hesitancy about going, after all. "You know, Tess, they do such awful things to folks in horsepistols!"

"For pity's sake! stop calling it that," begged Tess. "And they don't do awful things in hospitals."

"Yes they do; they take off folkses legs and arms and pull their teeth and——"

"They don't!" denied Tess, flatly. "Not in this hospital, anyway. Here, they cure sick ladies and little children that are lame and sick. Oh! it's a be-a-utiful place!"

"How do you know?" asked Dot, doubtfully.

"Sadie Goronofsky's cousin was there," Tess said, with confidence. "Sadie went to see her—and she had jelly and oranges and farina puddings and all kinds of nice things to eat. Sadie knows, because she let her lick the tumblers and dishes. Besides, we're not going to be patients there," Tess declared. "We're only calling on Mrs. Eland."

"I hope she has some of that nice farina pudding for tea," sighed Dot. "I'm fond of that."

"Don't be a little gobbler, Dot, if she gives us anything good," said Tess, with her most elder-sisterly air. "Remember, we promised Ruth to be little ladies."

"But goodness!" gasped Dot, "that doesn't mean that we can's eat at all, does it? I'm dreadful hungry. I always am after school and you know Mrs. MacCall lets us have a bite. If being a lady means going hungry, I don't want to be one—so there, Tess Kenway!"

This frank statement, and Dot's vehemence, might have caused some friction between the sisters (for of course Tess felt her importance, being the older, and having been particularly charged by Ruth to look after her sister) had they not met Neale O'Neil coming from the clothing store on High Street. He had a big bundle under his arm.

"Oh, I know what you've got, Neale!" cried Tess. "Those are your new clothes."

"You're a good little guesser, Tess Kenway," laughed the boy. "And it's a Jim-dandy suit. Ought to be. It cost me eight dollars of my hard earned lucre."

"What's that?" demanded Dot, hearing something new.

"Lucre is wealth. But eight dollars isn't much wealth, is it?" responded Neale, and passed on, leaving the two little girls at the steps of the main entrance to the hospital.

There was no time now for discussing what Mrs. MacCall called "pros and cons," for the hall door was opened and a girl in a blue uniform and white cap beckoned the two little visitors up the steps.

"You are the two children Mrs. Eland is expecting, aren't you?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," said Tess, politely. "We have a 'pointment with her."

"That's right," laughed the nurse. "She's waiting for you in her room. And the tea smells good."

"Is—is there farina pudding?" asked Dot, hesitatingly. "Did you smell that, too?"

Tess tugged at the smaller girl's coat and scowled at her reprovingly; but the pretty nurse only laughed. "I shouldn't be surprised if it were farina pudding, little girl," she said.

And it was! Dot had two plates of it, besides her pretty cup of cambric tea. But Tess talked with Mrs. Eland in a really ladylike manner.

In the first place the matron of the hospital was very glad to see the two Corner House girls. She did not have on her gray cloak or little bonnet with the white ruche. Dot's Alice-doll's new cloak was a flattering imitation of the cut and color of the hospital matron's outdoor garment.

Mrs. Eland was just as pink-cheeked and pretty as ever indoors; but the children saw that her hair was almost white. Whether it was the white of age, or of trouble, it would have been hard to say. In either case Mrs. Eland had not allowed the cause of her whitening hair to spoil her temper or cheerfulness.

That her natural expression of countenance was sad, one must allow; but when she talked with her little visitors, and entertained them, her sprightliness chased the troubled lines from the lady's face.

"And—and have you found your sister yet, Mrs. Eland?" Tess asked hesitatingly in the midst of the visit. "I—I wouldn't ask," she hastened to say, "but Miss Pepperill wanted to know. She asked twice."

"Miss Pepperill?" asked the matron, somewhat puzzled.

"Yes, ma'am. Don't you 'member? She's my teacher that wanted me to learn the sovereigns of England."

"Why, of course! I had forgotten," admitted Mrs. Eland. "Miss Pepperill."

"Yes. And she's much int'rested in you," said Tess, seriously. "Of course, everybody is. They are going to make a play, and we're going to be in it——"

"I'm going to be a bee," said Dot, in a muffled voice.

"And it's going to be played for money so's you can stay here in the hospital and be matron," went on Tess.

"Ah, yes, my dear! I know about that," said Mrs. Eland, with a very sweet smile. "And I know who to thank for it, too."

"Do you?" returned Tess, quite unconscious of the matron's meaning. "Well! you see, Miss Pepperill's interested, too. She only asked me for the second time to-day if I'd seen you again and if you had found your sister."

"No, no, my dear. I never can hope to find her now," said Mrs. Eland, shaking her head.

"She was lost in a fire," said Dot, suddenly.

"Why, yes! how did you know?" queried the lady, in surprise.

"The man that shot the eagle said so," Dot replied. "And he wanted to know if you were much related to Lem—Lemon——"

"Lem-u-el!" almost shrieked Tess. "Not Lemon, child. Lemuel Aden."

"Oh, yes!" agreed the smaller girl, quite calmly. "That's just as though I said Salmon for Samuel—like Sammy Pinkney. Well! It isn't such a great difference, is it?"

"Of course not, my dear," laughed Mrs. Eland. "And from what people tell me, my Uncle Lemuel must have been a good deal like a lemon."

"Then he was your uncle?" asked Tess.

"And—and was he real puckrative?" queried Dot. "For that's what Aunt Sarah says a lemon is."

"He was a pretty sour man, I guess," said Mrs. Eland, shaking her head. "I came East when I was a little girl, looking for him. That was after my dear father and mother died and they had taken my sister away from me," she added. "But what about the man that shot the eagle? Who was he?"

Tess told her about their adventures of the previous Saturday in the chestnut woods and the visit to the farmhouse afterward. Dot added:

"And that eagle man don't like your Uncle Lem-u-el, either."

"Why not?" asked Mrs. Eland, quickly, and flushing a little.

Before Tess could stop the little chatterbox—if she had thought to—Dot replied: "'Cause he says your uncle's brother stole. He told us so. So he did, Tess Kenway—now, didn't he?"

"You mustn't say such things," Tess admonished her.

But the mischief was done. The matron lost all her pretty color, and her lips looked blue and her face drawn.

"What do you suppose he meant by that?" she asked slowly, and almost whispering the question. "That my Uncle Lem's brother was a thief? Why, Uncle Lem only had one brother."

"He was the one," Dot said, in a most matter-of-fact tone. "It was five hundred dollars. And the eagle man said he and his mother suffered for that money and she died—his mother, you know—'cause she had to work so hard when it was gone. Didn't she, Tess?"

The conversation had got beyond Tess Kenway's control. She felt, small as she was, that something wrong had been said. By the look on Mrs. Eland's pale face the kind-hearted child knew that she was hurt and confused—and Tess was the tenderest hearted child in the world.

"Oh, Mrs. Eland!" she crooned, coming close to the lady who sat before her little stove, with her face turned aside that the children should not see the tears gathering in her eyes. "Oh, Mrs. Eland! I guess Mr. Buckham didn't mean that. Of course, none of your folks could be thieves—of course not!"

In a little while the matron asked the children a few more questions, including Mr. Buckham's full name, and how he was to be reached. She had not been in the neighborhood of Ipswitch Curve since she had first come from the West—a newly made orphan and with the loss of her little sister a fresh wound in her poor heart. So she had forgotten the strawberry farmer, and most of the other people in the old neighborhood where her father had lived before going West.

Dot Kenway was quite unconscious of having involuntarily inflicted a wound in Mrs. Eland's mind and heart that she was doomed not to recover from for long weeks. As the sisters bade the matron good-bye, and started for the old Corner House, just as dusk was falling, Tess felt that her friend, Mrs. Eland, was really much sadder than she had been when they had begun their call.

Tess, however, could not understand the reason for this.

CHAPTER XIII

NEALE SUFFERS A SHORTENING PROCESS

"Tore? No! Only tore off a mile too long," snorted Mrs. MacCall.

"I declare, Neale," chuckled Agnes, "they are awfully long. They drag at the heel."

"And I've got 'em pulled up now till I feel as though I was going to be cut in two," complained the boy.

"Made for a man—made for a man," sniffed Aunt Sarah, who chanced to be in the sitting room. She did not often take any interest in Neale O'Neil—or appear to, at least. But she eyed the too long trousers malevolently. "Ought to be cut off two inches."

"Yes; a good two inches," agreed Mrs. MacCall.

"Leave the pants here, Neale, and some of us will get time to shorten them for you before next Sunday. You won't want to wear them before then, will you?" said Ruth.

"Oh, no," returned Neale. "I'm not going to parade these to school, first off—just as Agnes does every new hair-ribbon she buys."

"Thank you, Mr. Smartie. Hair-ribbons aren't like suits of clothes, I should hope."

"If they were," chuckled the boy, "I s'pose you'd have a pair of my trousers tied on your pigtail and hanging down your back."

For that she chased him out of the house and they had a game of romps down under the grape-arbor and around the garden.

"Dear me!" sighed Ruth, "Neale makes Aggie so tomboyish. I don't know what to do about it."

"Sho, honey!" observed the housekeeper. "What do you care as long as she's healthy and pretty and happy? Our Aggie is one of the best."

"Of course she is," rejoined the oldest Corner House girl. "But she's getting so big—and is so boisterous. And see what trouble she has got into about that frolic last spring. She can't play in this show that the others are going to act in."

"That's too bad," said Mrs. MacCall, threading her needle. "If ever there was a girl cut out to be a mimic and actress, it's Aggie Kenway."

"Don't for pity's sake tell her that!" cried Ruth, in alarm. "It will just about make her crazy, if you do. She is being punished for raiding that farmer's field—and it's right she should be punished——"

"Mean man!" snapped Aunt Sarah, suddenly. "Those gals couldn't have eat many of his old berries."

"Oh! I don't think Mr. Bob Buckham is mean," Ruth observed slowly, surprised to see Aunt Sarah take up cudgels for Agnes, whom the old lady often called "hare-brained." "And he is not punishing the girls of the basket ball team. Mr. Marks is doing that."

"How did Mr. Marks know about it?" put in Aunt Sarah again.

"Well, we suppose Mr. Buckham told him. So Mr. Marks said, I believe."

"Mean man, then!" reiterated the old lady.

That was her only comment upon the matter. But once having expressed her opinion of the strawberry man, nothing on earth could have changed Aunt Sarah's mind toward him.

Agnes herself could not hold any hard feeling toward Mr. Buckham. Not after listening to his story, and being forgiven so frankly and freely her part in the raid on the strawberry patch.

However much her sisters and the rest of the family felt for Agnes, the latter suffered more keenly as the week went by. The teachers in each grade took half an hour a day to read the synopsis of The Carnation Countess to their pupils and to explain the part such pupils would have in the production. Also the training of those who had speeches or songs began. Of course, the preliminary training for the dance steps was left to the physical culture teachers on Friday afternoon.

"Oh! oh! oh!" gasped the chorus of unhappy basket ball players.

"And she is every bit as guilty as we are," added Eva Larry.

"Hush!" commanded Agnes. "Somebody'll hear you."

"What if?"

"We don't want Trix to say that we dragged her into our trouble when she was lucky enough to escape."

"And I'd just like to know how she did escape," murmured Myra.

"I think Mr. Marks is just as mean!" exclaimed Mary Breeze. "Miss Lederer said I had a good chance to be Bright Thoughts—she would have picked me for that part. And now I can't be in the play at all!"

"Goodness, no! We can't even 'carry out the dead,' as my brother calls it," said another girl. "The door is entirely shut to us."

"We all ought to have had a bright thought and have stayed out of that farmer's field," growled Eva. "Mean old hunks!"

"Who?" cried Agnes.

"That Buckham man."

"No, he isn't!" said the Corner House girl, stoutly. "He's a fine old man. I've talked with him."

"Oh, Agnes!" cried Myra. "Did you see him and try to beg off for us?"

"No. I didn't do that. I didn't see that that would help us. Mr. Marks has punished us, not Mr. Bob Buckham."

"I bet she did," said Mary Breeze, unkindly. "At least, I bet she tried to beg off for herself."

"Now, Mary, you know you don't believe any such thing," Eva said. "We know what kind of girl Agnes Kenway is. She would not do such a thing. If she asked, it would be for us all."

"No," said Agnes, shortly. "I did not do that. I just told Mr. Buckham how sorry I was for taking the berries."

"Oh! What did he say, Aggie?" asked another girl.

"He forgave me. He was real nice about it," Agnes confessed.

"But he told on us. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this pickle," Mary Breeze said. "I don't call that nice."

Agnes had it on her tongue to say that she did not believe Mr. Bob Buckham had sent the list of the culprit's names to Mr. Marks. Although she had said nothing more to Neale O'Neil about it, she knew that the boy was confident that the list of girls' names reached the principal of the Milton High through some other channel than that of the farmer. Agnes herself was assured that Mr. Buckham could not write. Nor did he and his wife seem like people who would do such a thing. Besides, how had the farmer obtained the girls' names, in the first place?

Like Neale, too, Agnes had a feeling that Trix Severn somehow held the key to the mystery. But the Corner House girl would not say so aloud. Indeed, she had refused to acknowledge this belief to Neale.

So now she kept still and allowed the other girls to do the talking and surmising.

"Well, say what you may," Myra Stetson said at last. "Trix is one lucky girl. But she'll make a fine Innocent Delight——"

"I don't think!" finished Eva. "Aggie is the one for that. A blonde. Who ever but Professor Ware would think of giving such a part to a dark girl?"

"Let's not criticise," Agnes said, with a sigh. "We can't be in it, but we mustn't knock."

"Right-oh!" said Myra, the cheery one. "We can go to the show and root for the others."

"Well!" gasped Eva, "I'd like to see myself applaud Trix Severn as Innocent Delight! I—guess—not!"

Although Ruth Kenway had not been selected for one of the speaking parts, she was quite as excited, nevertheless, as those who had been thus chosen. To keep one's mind upon lessons and The Carnation Countess at the same time, was difficult even for the steady-minded Ruth.

Dot went "buzzing" about the house like a veritable bee, singing the song that was being taught her and her mates. Tess' class were to be butterflies and hummingbirds. And—actually!—Tess had been given a part to speak.

It was not very long, but it was of some importance; and her name, Theresa Kenway, would appear on the programme, as Swiftwing.

It really was a mystery how Tess came to be chosen for the part. She was such a quiet, unobtrusive child that she never would be noticed in a crowd of other children of her age. But when Professor Ware, the musical director, came around to Miss Pepperill's class to "look the talent over," as he expressed it, he chose Tess without the least hesitancy for Swiftwing, the hummingbird.

"You lucky dear!" Agnes said. "Well! at least the Kenways will be represented on the programme, if I can't do anything myself."

Others, besides her immediate girl friends, said abroad that Agnes Kenway should be Innocent Delight. She was just fitted for the part. Miss Shipman, Agnes' old teacher, joined Miss Lederer in petitioning that the second oldest Corner House girl be given the part instead of Trix Severn. Trix, as a very pronounced brunette, would much better be given a part like Tom-o'-Dreams or Starlight.

But Mr. Marks was obdurate. None of the girls who had entered into the reprehensible prank on the way back from the basket ball game at Fleeting could have any part in the performance of The Carnation Countess.

"The farmer wrote me of their stealing the berries in such a strain that I fear he may take legal action against the parents of the foolish girls. It would be a lasting disgrace for any of the names of these girls to appear on our programme and in court proceedings at the same time," added the principal, though smiling at this conceit. "I do not see how I can change my ruling."

But Agnes could not understand Mr. Bob Buckham. His letter to Mr. Marks must have been really vindictive; yet he did not seem to be at all the sort of person who would be so stern and uncompromising.

Just what Neale had done toward getting his girl chum out of "the mess," as he called it, Agnes did not know. At this time Neale suffered something which quite took up his attention.

Those trousers that were too long!

Saturday of this very busy week came, and Agnes, in dusting the sitting-room, found Neale's new gray trousers, neatly folded, on Ruth's sewing-table.

"Oh, Ruthie!" she said. "You never fixed these pants."

"I'm going to," her sister replied, and sat right down, there and then, carefully ripped the hem at the bottom of each trouser-leg, cut off two inches and stitched a new hem very carefully, putting back the stiffening and sewing on the "heel-strap" in a very workmanlike manner.

Agnes ran to the kitchen for an iron and pressed the bottom of the trouser-legs to conform with the tailor's creases. "There! that's done," she said, "and done right."

It most certainly was done, whether right or not, the sequel was to show. After supper Neale started for home and Agnes gave him the new trousers.

"I suppose you'll want to wear that fancy suit of yours to church to-morrow morning," she said.

"Bet you!" he replied cheerfully. "Did you cut 'em down?"

"Ruthie did," said Agnes.

"Good for her! Tell her 'Thanks'!"

As he went through the front hall Aunt Sarah put her head over the balustrade and asked:

"Did you get them pants, boy?"

She never by any possibility called Neale by his right name, and her voice now was just as sharp as ever.

"Yes, ma'am—thank you," Neale said politely.

In the kitchen Mrs. MacCall said, with a smile: "The pants all right, Neale?"

"Sure they are," he declared, as he went out. Then he thought: "Dear me! seems as though everybody has a lot of interest in my new clothes."

In the morning, early, when he put the suit on to display it to the old cobbler with whom Neale lived, the boy experienced a sudden and surprising interest in the trousers himself.

The Corner House girls were at breakfast when, with a great clatter, Neale rushed in at the back door, through the kitchen, and into the dining room. He had on his new jacket and vest, but around his waist was tied a voluminous kitchen apron that Mr. Con Murphy wore when he cooked, which covered Neale to his insteps.

"Dear me! what is the matter, Neale?" asked Ruth, with some vexation.

"Matter? Matter enough!" cried the white-haired boy, very red in the face. "Look what you did to my pants!"

He lifted the apron and displayed a wealth of blue yarn sock above his shoe-tops, and hose supporters as well.

"For the good Land o' Goshen!" ejaculated Aunt Sarah.

"I never—in all my life!" cried Mrs. MacCall.

"Ma soul an' body!" chuckled Uncle Rufus from the background. "Somebody done sawed off dat boy's pants too short, for suah!"

"Dear suz!" added the housekeeper. "I'm sure I never did that."

"You can't tell me 'twas me done it," snapped Aunt Sarah.

"Oh, Neale!" wailed Ruth. "I didn't cut off but two inches."

"You, Niece Ruth?" exclaimed Aunt Sarah.

"That's what I done."

"Oh, oh!" sharply cried Mrs. MacCall. "I cut 'em off, too!"

Uncle Rufus almost dropped the dish of ham and eggs he was serving. Agnes shouted:

"Oh, my heart alive! Six inches off the bottom of those trousers! You have gone back into short pants, Neale O'Neil, that's sure!"